Re: Help autobooting FreeBSD 4.2

[OKUJI Yoshinori]

From: Daniel Pittman <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Help autobooting FreeBSD 4.2
Date: 11 Jan 2001 19:12:18 +1100

> When I last installed GRUB (0.5.96.1), "setup" wouldn't put the path I
> wanted for my 'menu.lst' file in automatically. (I want /grub/menu.lst).
> 
> So, without "install" I wouldn't have been very happy with GRUB. With it
> I was able to get what I wanted.

  That was just a bug in setup_func and fixed by Jochen. So that is
not a good reason to keep the command.

> I would (as a user) like to see the functionality kept even if the
> command changes some.

  Yes, of course. What I mean isn't to prohibit the user from
customizing his/her boot environment in an arbitrary way. Rather, my
aim is to provide a simpler and safer interface for ordinary
users. This is quoted from the manual:

   The other goals, listed in approximate order of importance, are:
   
   * Basic functions must be straightforward for end-users.

   * Rich functionality to support kernel experts and designers.

   * Backward compatibility for booting FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and
     Linux. Proprietary kernels (such as DOS, Windows NT, and OS/2) are
     supported via a chain-loading function.

  Clearly, Erich's GRUB was not straightforward, because of the
needless complication of the installation methods, despite of that
statement above. So I implemented "setup" to simplify the installation
process, while keeping full backward compatibility. However, as I left
"install" unchanged, many users are still using "install", maybe
because they don't know what "setup" is or anything about the
existence at all, even though "install" is not user-friendly at all.

  So perhaps it is necessary to remove "install" and add the same
features into "setup" by extra options, such as
"--config-file=FILE". This way, we will be able to say good-bye to the
legacy interface without losing any good feature.

Okuji